As you’ve already read in our December blog, we spend the first part of January driving to the harbor of Antwerp. We parked the van at a secure parking lot, from where it got driven on to the boat to Cancun at the 16th. We took the train to Tilburg. My brother was kind enough to let us stay with him. We were really looking forward for a relaxing 10 days. Well it turned out we had underestimated how much we had to do and how much time it would take! So it wasn’t relaxing at all. But we did enjoy meeting up with friends and family. We also ate too much (unhealthy) typical Dutch food like “frikadellen “ “worstenbroodjes “ and “kruidnoten “.
We took Binkie to our trusted veterinarian. There he had a general health check, had his teeth cleaned and we made sure we had all the right papers for travelling to Mexico.
On the 20th we got up really early and a friend kindly drove us to Schiphol airport. Where we arrived with LOTS of time to spare as you can read here . The journey went well but it was very long. From door to door our total travel time was almost 17 hours. All this time Binkie was in his small travel bag. But he did amazing! Not a single peep out of him. We had stopped giving him food 8 hours before travelling so he was sober. Conveniently he did a poop just before we left the house. During the flight we gave him some wet food with extra water to keep him hydrated. There were training pads in his bag but he didn’t pee either. Once we arrived at the house we made him a small litter box from an old bucket. The next day we bought him a big litter box. Binkie was used to the house in no time! As if he didn’t just spend 17 hours travelling halfway across the world. We went to bed exhausted. There is a 6 hour time difference between Cancún and the Netherlands, but after two days we were used to it. It is winter in Cancún as well as in the Netherlands. But in Cancún the winter weather is like summer in the Netherlands, mostly sunny but with the occasional flood of rain.
The first few days after our arrival, we did little but the necessary shopping. To our, slightly unpleasant, surprise food in Mexico is almost as expensive as it is in the Netherlands! And anything to do with tourism is expensive as well. Most other things in Mexico are somewhat cheaper. We didn’t check this out before and it wouldn’t have made a difference for our plans anyway, but we have had to adjust our expectations. We’ve spend the past year and a half in countries that mostly were a lot cheaper than Western Europe and I guess we kind of expected the same thing here. We do hope things will be cheaper outside the (touristic) cities. But we won’t know until we get the van back. Another thing we didn’t think about before was that they have different outlets here. So none of our plugs fitted and we couldn’t charge our appliances. Kilian tinkered with some electrical stuff, bought at a supermarket and now we can charge our phones etc.
Most supermarkets here are American, like Walmart, Costco and 7-11. So we can also buy a lot of American food here like Poptarts and fruit loops. The supermarkets are well stocked and have a good variety of quality food. They sell a lot of non-food to, even motorbikes. We do wonder about some things, for example lettuce is not only pre-washed but also disinfected? They also add a lot of unnecessary ingredients to products. Like sugar in coconut milk, so our home made curry ended up tasting sweet like candy, not exactly a recommended flavour for curry 🙁 And then they put a warning label on the package that the product contains too much sugar!
We’ve rented bikes for the duration of our stay in Cancun and have done some exploring. We’ve been to Mercador 28, an open air market with lots of colorful stuff. We went to a public beach, walked Tulum boulevard and ate churros at Las Palapas square. We have visited a few shopping malls (with nothing but expensive Western stuff) and parque Urbano Kabah, were we saw some turtles, a coati and a Mayan hut. We took Binkie to two different parks, so he could do some exploring as well. I am taking some Spanish lessons. We took three beginners classes in the Netherlands, but that was two years ago and what we did learn isn’t nearly enough to have a conversation.
We are getting used to the different sounds the birds here make. We have seen iguanas in the streets and found a creepy bug in our house. It turned out to be a tailless whip scorpion. Gross and scary but apparently harmless. Mexico appears to be a dog country. Almost everybody seems to own one or more dogs. So we often hear barking. But surprisingly all dogs are kept on a leash when being walked and most owners clean up after their dogs, most Dutch dog owners could learn something from this!
Traffic here is loud as a lot of cars and motors have broken exhaust pipes. There are also a lot of cars with a sound system, shouting out advertisements. Most people drive quite fast and don’t use their turn signal. However most drivers are considerate towards cyclists. They keep their distance or slow down and after heavy rainfall they do their best to avoid puddles so not to splash you. Most drivers that is, except for the (mini)bus drivers. So in Mexico, just like the rest of the world, the “professional “ driver is the worst driver on the road.
In February we will be getting our van back and we will get to experience driving in Mexico first hand.
hoi Marcia en Kilian weer genoten van de fotos en het verslag rust lekker uit en als de auto er is kunnen jullie weer verder,blijf gezond.
gr.